Greenville Apartment Rents have nearly Tripled!

If it seems like rents have been steadily rising even with all the new apartments proliferating in downtown Greenville, a new report confirms that not only are rents growing, they're going up at a rate triple the national average over the past year.

And in South Carolina, Greenville marks the highest rent growth among the state's 10-largest cities, according to Apartment List, a San Francisco-based apartment rental marketplace.

The company's April rent report shows that rents in Greenville rose 4.2 percent since this time last year, compared to national growth of 1.3 percent.

The rate growth is attributed to Greenville's "successful development efforts to diversify its economy," which contributes to a strong job market, said Chris Salviati, the company's housing economist.

"A growing population creates demand for housing, and without new constructions to meet that demand, prices will rise," Salviati said.

The growth in rents doesn't account for the hundreds of apartment units currently under construction and coming online over the year, more than 800 in and around downtown Greenville alone.

The increase in Greenville comes as some major cities such as Minneapolis saw small declines in rents, though Greenville still remains more affordable than most large cities, according to the report, which collects median rent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau and compares to its own rental listing database.

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Support stories like this by supporting local journalism. You can read all in-depth reporting on issues that affect the Upstate by becoming a subscriber.Greenville's median two-bedroom rent is $870, which is below the national average of $1,170, according to the report. By comparison, a similar apartment in San Francisco would cost $3,110 per month.

The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Greenville is $720.

South Carolina as a whole saw rent growth slightly above the national average from last year, at 1.4 percent. Spartanburg was second to Greenville at 3.8 percent, while Columbia was 1.9 percent. Rents in Charleston, with a median two-bedroom rate of $1,090, decreased two-tenths of a percent since last year.

The most-expensive city for rent in the state is Mount Pleasant, where the median two-bedroom rents fro $1,570.

While rent has grown over the past year in Greenville, it decreased slightly over last month by one-tenth of a percent.